Republican state Sen. Leah Vukmir made it official Thursday that she's running for the U.S. Senate in Wisconsin, casting herself as the only true conservative in a primary contest that includes a former Democrat.

Construction unions might think they caught a break last week with top Wisconsin lawmakers’ decision to take a proposal to repeal the state’s remaining prevailing-wage laws out of the state budget. But the reprieve is not likely to last long.

Even as one of the leading proponents of eliminating Wisconsin’s prevailing wage laws acknowledged repeal is unlikely this year, other lawmakers remained at odds about what sorts of lesser tweaks might be possible to get through the Legislature.

Two state lawmakers plan to begin seeking sponsors Thursday for a bill that would reassert that the site for The Couture, a high-rise building proposed for downtown Milwaukee, is not public land and is available for private development.